Tag Archives: Athens

The Peloponnesian War Summary of Battles and Betrayals – Part One

You couldn’t imagine two cities less alike. Athens was a powerful democracy where citizens spent their days reclining and discussing politics and culture. Sparta was a ruthless oligarchy where individuals were born and bred to fight. Athens controlled a large, mostly coastal territory with its commanding navy, while Sparta was infamous for its authoritative army.

Written on July 18, 2017 at 7:36 am, by anya

2 Comments

Categories: Wars

Tags: Athens, Corinth, empire, Golden Age of Athens, Peloponnesian, Peloponnesian legue, Peloponnesian war, Sparta

Oedipus at Colonus: The Tale of Two Ancient Deaths

And so it comes to be, that all men must die. Yes, even the old ones. The great poet and dramatist, Sophocles, was approaching his own end when he imagined the glorious finale of the tragic figure, Oedipus in Oedipus at Colonus. This play is thought to be Sophocles’ final one because it was first produced

Written on April 11, 2017 at 9:10 am, by plato

9 Comments

Categories: Oedipus Trilogy

Tags: Ancient Greece, Antigone, Athens, Creon, Oedipus, Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Rex, play, Sophocles, Theseus, Tragedy

The Rise and Fall of the Athenian Empire (part 1)

Those of you who are members of the Classical Wisdom Society know that this month we have been looking at Herodotus’ The Histories and the epic struggle for supremacy that was the Greco-Persian wars. And that certainly is a topic worth discussing. It has been argued that had the Greeks been unable to stay

Written on March 23, 2015 at 3:48 pm, by Socrates

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Categories: Empires

Tags: Athenian Empire, Athens, Sparta, Thucydides

The Ages of Ancient Greece

By Ben Potter Archaic. Classical. Hellenistic. These terms are often (and quite naturally) conflated together under the generic heading of ‘classical’, or, at the very least, ‘old’. It appears that organizing history into clear, distinct eras can be a tricky business. This, of course, is more true for the Greeks than for the Romans. This

Written on November 28, 2014 at 4:27 pm, by plato

1 Comment

Categories: Politics

Tags: 480, 776, Aeschylus, Aphaia at Aegina, Archaic, Archaism, argos, Aristophanes, Aristotle, Athens, Bronze, Classical Greece, Corinth, Euripides, Hellenism, Herodotus Thyuchdides, persian war, Plato, Polyclitus, Praxiteles, Prehistoric, socrates, Sophocles, Sparta, tyranny

Aristippus and the Pursuit of Pleasure

As is common with many of the more obscure ancient philosophers, the majority of our knowledge comes from Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers. As always, we may be hesitant to believe everything we read in this text. Diogenes Laertius would have have lived some 500 years after the golden age of philosophy in Greece.

Written on December 24, 2013 at 5:47 pm, by Van Bryan

4 Comments

Categories: Philosophers

Tags: Aristippus, Athens, Cyrene, socrates

My Women Fight Like Men

Queen Artemisia of Caria is mentioned by a handful of ancient Greek writers who would have lived some years after her death. Most of our knowledge about her, of course, comes from the Father of History himself. Herodotus directly makes reference to Artemisia numerous times as he recounts the events of the Greco-Persian wars. As

Written on December 12, 2013 at 4:53 pm, by Van Bryan

2 Comments

Categories: Leaders

Tags: Artemisia of Caria, Athens, Greco-Persian war, Herodotus, Themistocles, Xerxes

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